Indonesian Dinner & Tunnel Presentation

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Tuesday, April 10th, it was time again for our annual Indonesian Dinner event this year catered by Kaffir Lime which was well received!

Junction YYC at 628 8 Ave SW, with its intimacy and elevated stage turned out to be a perfect setting for a dinner combined with a presentation.

As a starter our Secretary, Sebastiaan Maassen, asked Lennard Kuijten to come on the stage to thank him on behalf of all of us for the work he did on the DCBC website. Lennard received besides applause from the members a gift card as a material expression of our gratitude for his effort.

Remco Kleinlugtenbelt gave a presentation on building tunnels. Remco is a Geotechnical Engineer by profession and worked for the city of Amsterdam on the tunnel for the North-South line of the Amsterdam Underground (‘Metro’). Currently he is engaged in the LRT Green Line project. Part of the Green Line will be a tunnel, since it has to cross the Bow River without building another bridge over it.

Building a tunnel beneath the 17th century city center of Amsterdam was quite a challenge, even for experienced professionals in engineering. Remco’s presentation showed not only how the engineers dealt with the geotechnical risks that the project faced, but also how they managed to turn the initial scepticism of the public in Amsterdam into support for the tunnel project.

Building a tunnel beneath Calgary is a different story, due to the completely different type of soil beneath this city. Still, tunnel construction is a process that involves risks, since not everything about the deeper layers beneath the city is known. Wouldn’t it be great if the tunnel builders would stumble on a few dinosaur skeletons? I bet that the Glenbow Museum would want these! Well, we will see. One thing is sure: if the tunnel building in Calgary goes as well as the Amsterdam one, we can also forward to the completion of it without worrying to much.